


independent study of citrus-based utensils and queerness

by Rustyanklebraclet



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coming Out, F/F, Fix-It, Misunderstandings, Obliviousness, Post-Canon, Sort Of, idiots to lovers, not close enough to friends with benifits for me to tag it but like. fwb adjacent.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26262745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rustyanklebraclet/pseuds/Rustyanklebraclet
Summary: Abed left, like, 60% of his stuff here and she doesn’t know what they’re going to do with it. Her parents still won’t talk to her. She’s spent six years in community college and has a degree and a half, but still not an actual job. There’s an envelope from the F.B.I. in the kitchen drawer that she’s never going to open but won’t throw out.She’s still lying there when Britta comes in around two, though she’s stopped crying.---Abed leaves. Annie doesn't.
Relationships: Annie Edison & Abed Nadir, Annie Edison & Jeff Winger, Annie Edison/Britta Perry, Dean Craig Pelton/Jeff Winger (mentioned)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 67





	independent study of citrus-based utensils and queerness

**Author's Note:**

> takes place directly post-canon (plus a little bit at the end of canon) if abed still moved to la but annie didnt go to dc. the only other big change, and i mean this is explained but incase its unclear, is that annie and jeff dont kiss when she goes to see him in the library.
> 
> the inspiration for this is like 75% a prompt from [@/emshyperfixations on tumblr](https://emshyperfixations.tumblr.com/) and 25% based on that one tumblr post thats like "im so flustered the girl whose apartment im at to cook dinner for us told me im her type and she would date me" "hey it sounds like youre on a date" "hey so youre right, she kissed me and i was like what are you doing and apparently she thought this was our third date"
> 
> ok im very tired enjoy xoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoo

Annie goes with Abed to the airport. She sits with him in the back of Jeff's car, holding his hand and resting her head on his shoulder, and hugs him when they get out. And again when she hands him his bag. And again after Jeff hugs him.

“Annie,” he says “I have to go.”

“I know,” she tells him, muffled by his chest. “I’m pretending you don’t.” 

She finally pulls away and kisses his cheek, squeezes his hand, and he’s off. She and Jeff watch him walk away.

They get into the car, her on the passenger side. Jeff doesn’t move.

“Jeff? Are you alright?”

“You don’t still have feelings for me, do you?”

Annie’s caught off guard. “What?”

“Because when you came to find me at the school there, after I freaked out, and we were talking. I thought you were going to kiss me. I need to know that you weren’t.”

“Jeff-”

“Annie, you’re really cool. Like, you’re awesome. You’re one of my favourite people, so this isn’t- it’s not personal, I just-”

“Jeff!” he stops and looks at her, startled. Her voice is softer when she speaks again “where is all of this coming from?”

“I’m gay.”

She wants to say something supportive, but all she can come up with is, “oh.”

“Also, uh,” he scratches the back of his head “I'm dating Craig. Have been for a few months now.”

She takes a deep breath.

“I- I am too. Gay, I mean, not dating the dean,” she supplies, when he gives her an odd look.

“I’ve never said that out loud to another person before. Craig notwithstanding,” he tells her.

“I haven’t either.”

A thick silence hangs over them.

“Imagine what Pierce would say,” Jeff finally says, dryly.

Annie laughs. “I think his casket is vibrating right now,”

Jeff starts the car.

**\---**

Jeff drops her at home, and the apartment is dark when she comes in. Britta is working late.

She’s sort of in a get-so-drunk-you-can’t-feel-your-toes mood, but all she can find is two of Britta’s shitty beers. She and Abed don’t really drink.

She calls Troy instead. He doesn’t pick up. Whatever.

She lays down on the couch, and starts to cry before she can stop herself. Abed left, like, 60% of his stuff here and she doesn’t know what they’re going to do with it. Her parents still won’t talk to her. She’s spent six years in community college and has a degree and a half, but still not an actual job. There’s an envelope from the F.B.I. in the kitchen drawer that she’s never going to open but won’t throw out.

She’s still lying there when Britta comes in around two, though she’s stopped crying.

“Britta?”

“Holy fuck!”

It’s still dark. She never bothered to turn a light on.

“Annie?”

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?”

Annie doesn’t respond.

Britta comes and sits next to her, turning on a lamp. Annie shuffles down to make room, but Britta motions for her to come back. Annie rests her head on her leg.

“No therapizing,” Annie tells her.

“Not therapizing. Friendship.”

“I don’t really want to talk.”

“That’s okay.”

Britta’s fingers find their way into her hair. She strokes gently. Annie thinks she’s going to cry again.

“Could you get me a glass of water?” she asks instead.

“Sure,” Britta tells her. Annie follows her into the kitchen.

“If you were coming in here anyways, you could have just gotten it yourself,” Britta says, reaching for a glass, but there’s no bite to it.

She fills the glass, and hands it to Annie. Annie takes a sip and sets it on the counter.

“Did you know you’re still pretty, even when you’ve clearly been sitting in some kind of depressive funk for several hours?” it’s teasing, but it’s teasing in the Britta way where she’s trying to have a real conversation but doesn’t know how.

Annie pushes her against the half-broken fridge and kisses her.

**\---**

Annie wakes up the next morning, and Britta is still asleep next to her. Annie watches her for a second, but doesn’t want to have to explain herself if Britta wakes up. She grabs her clothes and goes to take a shower.

She slices a grapefruit in half and puts two slices of bread in the toaster. There’s still an almost full glass of water on the counter. She dumps it into the sink and plugs in the coffee pot.

She sits cross-legged in her chair at the table, and eats her breakfast and drinks her coffee. Her mother used to scold her about that, used to tell her it wasn’t ladylike and that she should sit properly.

She hears the creak of her bedroom door and Britta stumbles out, half-dressed in her work clothes. They hold eye contact for several seconds, and Annie breaks first.

“Do we have to talk about it?”

Britta is quiet for a moment. She gestures at the grapefruit half that Annie had been absently stabbing with a spoon.

“They make special spoons for that, y’know.”

“Huh?”

“They’re like, pointy on the end. My, uh, my mom used to have one.”

Annie looks down at the fruit. Britta’s mention of her mother doesn’t go unnoticed, but she doesn’t acknowledge it. “Seems sort of unnecessary.”

She sees Britta shrug out of the corner of her eye. “Guess it could be handy. I dunno, I don't eat the stuff.”

Annie looks up to see Britta sit down next to her. She picks up Annie’s mug, and takes a sip.

“There’s more in the kitchen if you want it.”

Britta shakes her head. “Yours tastes better.”

Annie snorts. “It’s exactly the same as the stuff in the kitchen.”

Britta leans over and kisses her, casual as anything. “Agree to disagree. Is there any cereal left?”

**\---**

Things go on like that. Britta and Annie kiss, among other things, and they don’t talk about it. Annie stops being able to sleep without Britta. It’s fine.

They’re going to have to talk about it  _ eventually _ . It’s a very long game of chicken, except there’s no winner or loser. 

**\---**

Jeff tells the others about him and Craig a week after he tells Annie. Frankie looks like she’s going to have an aneurysm.

Annie skypes with Abed that night, for the first time since he’s left, sitting at the table with her laptop.

“Did you talk to Jeff?” she asks.

“Not recently. Why?”

“Oh. it’s not really my place. Call him, he’ll tell you.”

“Did he finally tell you guys about him and The Dean?” Abed asks.

“What? You knew?”

“I figured it out pretty quickly. Jeff denied it when I asked him, but he’s not a very good liar.”

Britta comes out of the kitchen, adjusting her shirt.

“I’m off to work,” she says, before bending down to wave at the screen “Hi, Abed!”

“Hi, Britta.”

“Did you know Abed knew about Jeff and Craig the whole time? They didn’t even tell him, he just figured it out.” Annie asks her. Britta looks at the screen, where Abed shoots her a finger gun. She shrugs.

“Makes sense. Bye, Annie.”

“Bye.”

She turns back to the screen.

“So, question: what do you want us to do with all your stuff?”

**\---**

They fill three boxes with the items Abed very specifically requested they keep, that he was going to come back for at some point, and drop the rest off at goodwill.

“You could have done this before you left, you know,” Annie tells him, as he supervises via skype.

“I didn’t have a car,” he says, as though that’s an answer.

She throws a few more things into a donation bag. They’re going to take Britta’s car when she gets home.

“When was the last time you talked to Troy?” Abed asks.

“A couple weeks ago, I think? I was going to call him tomorrow actually. Why, when did you last talk to him?”

“When he left Greendale,” Abed says.

“Oh, shoot. That sucks. He’s dodging your calls?” Annie asks, Abed shakes his head.

“Other way around. I just wanted to know whether you guys were keeping up with him.”

She stops what she's doing, and looks at the screen properly,  _ tch _ -ing in the way Britta likes to make fun of “Abed! Why would you do that?”

“B plot. Don’t worry about it,” he tells her, and how much she misses him almost makes her chest hurt.

“Wait, why are you the B plot? What’s the A plot?”

“I haven’t decided. The group isn’t really the same anymore, so It’s hard to tell. Plus, there aren't really group hijinks these days, so things don’t move as fast as they used to. Right now, I think it's either something with Jeff, or you and Britta.”

“Me and Britta? What are you talking about?” Annie asks, laughing nervously as her stomach turns. Abed eyes her for a moment, but shakes his head.

“Maybe things are moving even slower than i thought. Must be the jeff thing.”

“Must be.”

**\---**

She wants to slyly drop the situation with Abed to Troy in conversation and try to help (or just get more details), but she stays out of it. She’s rather proud of herself.

“It’s called growth, babe,” Britta tells her. That’s another development- the pet names (they still haven’t talked about it.).

Summer ends. Classes start again at Greendale. Neither her nor Britta goes back.

“I’m sorry,” she tells Jeff.

He shrugs. “I’ll live.”

“Oh, wow. Reputation preserved. Congratulations asshole.”

“Fine. I’ll be so, so sad without my best friends in the whole wide world by my side. I’m going to cry myself to sleep every night. Craig is going to have to fire his own boyfriend because I'll be too devastated to even teach,” he says to her, completely deadpan.

“Asshole,” she says, shoving him.

He grins. “Come visit?”

She gets a job at the library, and Britta picks up more shifts at the bar. They get by, and don’t acknowledge that they’re paying for double the number of bedrooms that they need to be. They kept Abed's bed, so it’s theoretically either a guest bedroom or Britta's room. Except that they’ve literally never had a guest, and Britta’s slept in there three times.

**\---**

The next few weeks pass quietly. Before she knows it, it’s almost thanksgiving.

“Hi!” she calls as she comes into the apartment.

“Hi. do you want pasta?” Britta asks, coming out of the kitchen

“Pasta sounds good.”

Britta nods and goes back to the kitchen, and Annie wanders in after her. She sits on the counter opposite the stove as Britta waits for the water to boil.

“We need to talk about it,” Annie blurts.

Britta gives her a look. “Talk about what?”

“Us,” she says, and when Britta still looks at her blankly, “What are we doing?” 

“Making pasta?”

“No, like,” she takes a breath, and collects her thoughts “It’s been months of all this, like couple-y stuff. And we just haven’t addressed it. And you’re like, this cool girl that is all cool and does cool things and is just always cool. But that’s not who I am! I need an answer, Britta. What the hell is this?”

Britta’s eyes are wide and the sudden outburst, and she comes to stand between Annie’s legs, holding her hands.

“Okay, can you take a deep breath for me?”

Annie nods, and Britta breathes with her.

“I think, and forgive the Abed-ism, but I think we’ve stumbled into a bit of a miscommunication.”

“What are-” Annie begins, and shakes her head when her voice comes out like the whistle of a kettle, before trying again in a forcibly calmer voice. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought we were doing couple-y stuff because we  _ are _ a couple.”

“Then why didn’t you  _ say that? _ ” Annie asks.

“Because I thought you knew! Did you not want to be doing any of this?” Britta asks, looking horrified.

“No, of course I did. But when I suggested we talk about it, you started talking about grapefruit spoons!”

“I was deflecting! Annie, we’ve known each other for six years, it’s kind of what I do.”

Annie removes her hands from Britta’s to cover her face. “I’m an idiot.”

Britta holds her wrists, and gently pulls her hands away. “You’re not an idiot. A little oblivious, sure. But not an idiot.”

Annie smiles, and leans in to kiss her girlfriend.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on [Tumblr](https://readandwritesilver.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/HOMINGPIGE0N) if you want
> 
> As always, any and all feedback is appreciated :)
> 
> Much love, Clover <3


End file.
